“The 4-Hour Workweek” is Perfect for Domainers: Book Review
Timothy Ferriss’ fresh book The 4-Hour Workweek will sound familiar to successful domainers.
If you read the book jacket on Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek, it will remind you of the many internet marketing ebooks you’ve bought over the years. The top of the back cover reads:
WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU WANT TO QUIT YOUR JOB
It then highlights some of the things you’ll learn from reading the book, counting:
How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgetotten Italian economist (page 65)
If you’ve ever read a sales letter for an internet marketing eBook you’ve seen the crazy claims with page numbers listed to add credibility.
But there’s a difference between Ferriss’ book and those eBooks. The 4-Hour Workweek is a real hardcover book and a Fresh York Times bestseller published by Random House. And it’s not full of B.S.
I read a number of reviews regarding the book ahead of deciding to pick up a copy. A number of reviewers stated the book rang hollow and that it suggests the impossible. But anyone who has been successful in the domain industry knows Ferriss isn’t spinning a web of lies. At last month’s Domain Roundtable conference in Seattle, Frank Schilling joked that he earned $100 in pay-per-click revenue when he exhaled. That’s what we call an automated business, and that’s the type of business Ferriss promotes in his book. There are hundreds of people who stumbled upon domains over the past decade and were able to quit their day jobs as a result.
Ferriss is a 29-year-old entrepreneur who makes much of his money selling nutritional supplements. His book is a step-by-step guide for finding a market niche and creating a hands-off business around it. He also discusses how to be a world traveler, how to test business ideas with limited capital, and how to simplify your life. For example, you can hire an overseas personal assistant to take care of nagging tasks for you.
I agree with much of what Ferriss promotes in the book, although some of it is taken to an extreme. For example, he suggests that you basically stop reading non-fiction such as magazines and business books. I suppose that would include his book, too. Although Ferriss is successful, he hasn’t had a long string of homerun businesses (he isn’t old enough to have done that yet!). Many successful entrepreneurs would point to reading as the source of their fresh business ideas. But his point is valid; if you right now read 10 magazines a month then you might be better off reading just a couple.
Even if you’ve struck it rich with domain names, you may feel like your domains own you. The constant worrying regarding renewals. Always hunting for fresh domains. Fighting off trademark claims. If so, you’ll find this book a refreshing reminder of what’s notable in life and how to simplify it (by simplifying your business). Maybe it’s time to dump those typo domains so that you don’t have to worry regarding opening your mail each day and finding cease & desist letters. Maybe it’s time to put your domain parking on auto pilot so you can leave for a month-long vacation without having access to the internet.
There’s another difference between The 4-Hour Workweek and those marketing eBooks. You can pick up Ferriss’ book for only $11.97 at Amazon, regarding a tenth the price of those “get rich quick” eBooks.
